In the construction of pipelines to transport water or other fluids or material, the preferred method often involves burying the pipeline to protect the pipe. Burying the pipeline avoids exposing the pipe to the elements and allows for normal use of the land above the buried line.
Underground pipelines are generally built by digging the necessary trenches to accept the pipeline, assembling sections of the pipeline above ground and then lifting the assembled sections by crane or other suitable means into the prepared trenches. At present, the pipeline sections are often assembled and worked on directly on the ground beside the trench. Obviously, such an arrangement does not provide ideal working conditions and over varied terrain this can lead to major problems with aligning the pipe sections to be assembled. In order to perform the job of putting together pipe sections more efficiently, it is desirable to have temporary pipe supports on which sections of the pipe can be built prior to burying in the ground. Such temporary pipe supports must be capable of securely supporting the weight of a pipeline section as it is constructed. The pipe supports must be placed at intervals along the length of the pipe section under construction such that the pipe is fully supported and does not sag leading to cracks and possible leaks. Additionally, it would be advantageous to have a pipe support stand that is of simple and rugged construction and easily portable so that supports can be moved along the trenches as sections of pipeline are completed and buried in place. A further desirable feature of a temporary pipe support is that it be adjustable to accommodate variations in the terrain beside the trenches.
Prior art devices for holding and supporting pipes are known, however, these devices are generally suitable only as small scale work benches for supporting relatively short lengths of small diameter pipe suitable for indoor plumbing and the like. Examples of such prior art devices include the following U.S. patents:
______________________________________ 1,225,981 to Loughridge 3,735,973 to Petrie 2,989,142 to Gill 2,709,383 to Harris ______________________________________
None of the above patents show an easily adjustable support stand that is specifically designed for supporting pipelines under construction that is able to handle a range of pipe sizes up to the larger diameter pipes that are often used in pipeline construction.